The sport of grace and artistry, of rhinestones and sequins, of kissing and crying, is becoming an orthopedist's nightmare of broken bones and torn muscles at the elite level, with several top stars already down for the season.

Paul Binnebose, a strong contender to make the U.S. Olympic team in 2002, nearly died last autumn when his back buckled during a star lift in practice and pairs partner Laura Handy fell on top of him as his head whacked the ice. Binnebose was put into a drug-induced coma for 11 days after brain surgery, spent two months in the hospital, and still has facial paralysis.

Danielle Hartsell, U.S. pairs champion with her brother Steve, fell out of a practice lift a week before Christmas and fractured her patella. Russia's Anjelika Krylova, the two-time world ice dancing champion with Oleg Ovsyannikov, is slated for surgery now that her old back ailment has flared up.

U.S. men's champion Michael Weiss was nagged by a stress fracture in his ankle and didn't qualify for last weekend's Grand Prix final. And Erin Pearl from Scarborough, Maine, missed the Grand Prix season with a stress fracture in her leg and needed a medical waiver to get into next month's U.S. championships in Cleveland.

As the sport demands more and more daring and difficult jumps, throws and lifts, plus a year-round commitment to train and compete, skaters are turning up with the same kind of injuries seen in a pro football trainer's room.

"The risk value is great," said Christy Krall, senior director of athlete programs for the U.S. Figure Skating Association. "We should call it extreme skating."

Some of the injuries come from falling, or being dropped or thrown several feet onto a rock-hard surface. Some occur in warm-up collisions between close-quarters couples. But many are cropping up because skaters are training too hard and competing too often with little rest.

"We don't have the multisport athlete anymore," said Dr. Mahlon Bradley, an orthopedic surgeon and former skater. "We have the unisport athlete who goes four seasons without a break. There's no down time."

The elite skating season now runs from October to April, followed by the Champions on Ice exhibition tour, followed by working on new programs for the next season.

"Years ago skaters would take two or three months off after the season and go back to school," said pairs coach Ron Ludington.

"Now these kids go 12 months a year."

Unlike the Dick Buttons and Tenley Albrights of decades past, they're not tracing school figures. They're constantly airborne, working on quadruple jumps and triple-triple combinations, landing hundreds of times on a narrow blade, punishing bone, muscle and tendon.

The endless (and tedious) art-or-sport debate about figure skating is settled quickly by scientific reality. Skaters in the middle of a program have the same heart rate as half-milers (200 beats a minute) and produce as much lactic acid as marathoners.

They need up to 300 pounds of centrifugal force to hold in their arms and legs when they jump. And when they come down, the force on the landing leg is up to 14 times their body weight.

"Three practice sessions a day, five days a week, maybe 500 jumps," Krall said. "You can do the math."

The injuries are predictable and inevitable: stress fractures of the tibia, ankle and foot, compressed and sprained ankles, damaged knee tendons and ligaments, lower back strains and the kind of jumping-related groin injuries that have plagued Alexei Urmanov and Elvis Stojko.

The quad--four revolutions--seemed like a moon landing when Kurt Browning did the first one in 1988. Now it's mandatory for any world contender. Tim Goebel, the 19-year-old who could lift Weiss' title next month, did three quads at Skate America last autumn.

"You have to have a quad now to be competitive," says Dr. Roger Kruse, who was the U.S. skating team physician at the 1998 Olympics. "So everyone's going to be doing them, no matter what we say."

When Peggy Fleming won the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, she did nothing tougher than a double axel, which most juniors now do in their sleep. Dorothy Hamill won the 1976 gold medal without trying a triple jump, and Linda Fratianne landed only two when she won the 1979 world crown.

Seven triples, including triple-triple combinations, are now standard stuff in a women's world-level long program. The pairs, once a stylish side-by-side display, have evolved into an aerial circus of one-handed lifts and triple-throw jumps.

"We wouldn't be competitive today, not even in the same league," says Ludington, who won four U.S. pairs titles and a 1960 Olympic medal with wife Nancy.

"The material they're doing is more dangerous and demanding."

Even ice dancing, which skeptics insist is more samba than sport, has seen increasing amounts of collisions and spills.

"When you think about it, you're basically skating in high heels," said Amy Webster, a two-time U.S. medal winner (with Ron Kravette) who retired after having surgery on her shoulders and more than a dozen dislocations.

"When you have to be attached as dancers do, the chances are great for tripping and falling."